Kudos, congratulations for band members

Last week I took my 90-year-old mother to the TBJH band concert to hear her granddaughter play. All we could say was wow. Ray Reynolds needs to be commended for the wonderful job he does with so many band students. It is truly remarkable. You can tell that Ray really enjoys what he does, he gives the band students credit for their accomplishments and publishes it, yet he gets very little credit himself. I have three great musicians because of the patience, talent and expertise of Ray Reynolds, Mike Moors and Brian Carter and all three music educators need to be recognized.

On another note, I would like to congratulate several recent AHS students who did not get recognized this year. Thousands of band students auditioned for the All State Band and played at the DeVos Center in Grand Rapids, only one AHS band student was selected, Jaimee Reynolds for French Horn.

Another prestigious event was the MSBOA/MYAF first division honors band and choir. Over 25,000 auditioned for this honor and only four AHS students were invited to attend this three-day event at WMU in Kalamazoo. They were Greg Kucharek and Jaimee Reynolds for band and Kaitlyn Borke and Dylan Goike for choir.

This was an outstanding accomplishment for these students and I feel they need to be recognized. Alpena should be proud of the local talent we have in the Arts. It is not only athletes that have talent in this community.